Feb. 13, 2006 issue - French politics has always been a manly world, no place more so than the Elysee Palace. Almost forever, it seems, France's presidents have been cut from similar cloth, distinguished by a shared hauteur if not grandeur, self-imagined or otherwise. De Gaulle comes immediately to mind. So do Mitterrand and Chirac. Yet as the latter's star continues to wane among the French populace, a new figure has burst upon the scene. Her name: Segolene Royal. Though very much not a man, this elegant version of the sensible soccer mom could well become France's next president.

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We are 14 months from France's presidential election—almost an eternity in a nation notorious for its fickle politics. But make no mistake: something is afoot in France, and it bears watching. With due caveats, you might even think of it as revolution. Consider: a disillusioned electorate, recent surveys show, is profoundly fed up with politicians who speak eloquently but say little. They are tired of leaders who affect to lead by doctoring policies that seldom improve people's lives. A large majority of the French hope for what they call national rejuvenation.

They want a new-generation president who is honest and in touch with their daily lives, not some grand international visionary. And while it might be impossible for a single person to embody all these inchoate yearnings, it's clear that these days Royal—a rising star of the French Socialist Party—comes closer than any. A Feb. 3 poll for the first time showed her defeating longtime conservative front runner Nicolas Sarkozy in a presidential runoff, 51 percent to 49 percent. (Just weeks earlier, Sarkozy was 10 points ahead.) French marketing consultant Clotaire Rappaille sums up the euphoria: "She can help France live up to its history. We need politics to advance and to be sexy again. This is the return of the great French woman!"

Never mind, again, that France hasn't had a great female leader in living memory, and perhaps not since Joan of Arc. Yet scarcely a day passes without some new sign of Royal's growing cachet. It isn't customary for politicians of any stripe to make the covers of the conservative Le Figaro, the lefty Liberation and the glossy women's magazine Elle within a matter of weeks—but last month Royal did just that. Last week the annual political Who's Who of France, Trombinoscope, named her the "political revelation of the year." Among bickering fellow Socialists, party standard-bearer Lionel Jospin comes closest to her in popularity—and he trails by 20 percentage points. As for opposition-party rivals, the anointed favorite of President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, scores a meager 38 percent, while Chirac himself enjoys the confidence of only 21 percent of French voters.

Royal's CV offers a checklist of what France seems to want. Born in Dakar, Senegal, into a French military family, she studied at the prestigious ENA finishing school, where she met her life partner, Socialist Party chief Francois Hollande. After graduating in 1980, as the Socialists' fortunes rose, both were named as young advisers to incoming President Francois Mitterrand. Royal later served in Parliament and headed three government ministries—School Education, Environment, and Family and Childhood—tasked with the daily concerns of ordinary people. As the daughter of a military man, Royal is that rare Socialist who sounds credible when talking about law and order, while retaining the compassion of a good Socialist.

As a working mother of four in a country of working mothers, she also speaks from the heart against television violence, pornography, pedophilia and teen pregnancy. (Perhaps her most famous action as minister involved introducing day-after abortion pills into junior high and high schools.) She is that rare Parisian politician with a natural talent for crossing France's traditional left-right ideological divide and connecting to outlying cities and towns. She convincingly demonstrated the latter appeal in 2004 when she dealt a crushing blow to sitting Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin on his conservative agricultural home turf, in Poitou-Charentes, where she was elected regional president. Coming soon after the surprise election of Spanish Socialist Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Spain, supporters began referring to Royal as "la Zapatera." For the Socialists, she is a surprising, even astonishing tonic. Beaten decisively by Chirac a decade ago, and again in 2002 (when even far-right fringe parties outpolled the Socialists), France's party of the left has, until Royal's rise, seemed lost in a political wilderness. But recent events have helped change the landscape. The bitter split with the United States over Iraq, rising fears of globalization, the divisive referendum on the European Union constitution and this fall's fiery race riots appear to have sparked a hunger for fresh faces, new directions and, perhaps above all, new national priorities. In contrast to the men fighting tooth and nail to succeed Chirac, Royal is the very embodiment of something new. "Mothers don't care about ideology, but they feed you," says Rappaille. "They respond to everyday needs—social protection, medical care. It's all implied."

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